“I’ve installed that piece four or five different times, once for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations,” says artist Nancy Chinn B.A. ‘62. “Like a theatrical set design, it integrates fluidly with the expansive architecture of Grace Cathedral. It’s a celebrative piece that takes your breath away.”

Ward Plummer ‘62 grew up in Warrenton, a tiny fishing and timber town hunkered at the mouth of the Columbia River near Astoria. His parents–survivors of the Great Depression and the devastating Dust Bowl days in Kansas–shared the nation’s obsession with beating the Russians in the space race